Monday, 12 July 2010

Necessity is the bastard child of ideology

So you believe it's all necessary then? Why?

When I look at a VAT rise which imposed regressive taxation on the poorest in society, and see it matching tax cuts to business and the better off (£15b raised by VAT increase, £14.5b spent on tax cuts) I don't see necessity, I see ideology.

And when I hear Osborne and Alexander saying "it's worse than we thought" when the official figures actually show the deficit to be billions less than was thought before the election, I don't see necessity, I see political opportunism.

And when a party goes into an election aiming to cut a little over half the structural deficit in five years, and then decides to cut 100% in the same timeframe once they cobble together a governing coalition, I don't see necessity, I see old-school Tories imposing small government, and in so doing leaving the poorest to fend for themselves.

And finally, when the new government sets up an independent Office of Budget Responsibility and it shows that the effect of this emergency budget will be to increase the claimant count by an extra 100,000 people per year for the next four years, and this is followed by an attempt to silence and control this new body in its first month of existence, I don't see necessity, I see grubby, Tory politics as usual.

Hi Altany, thanks! I'm around Fife most weekends (my in-laws live in the East Neuk). You getting involved in your local branch? I'm finding it hard to understand the party structure, but I've done plenty of door-knocking and really enjoy it.